In such environments as restaurants, homes, retail stores, offices and work shops, there arises the need on occasion to expand available support top capacity, work surface capacity or table top space. When this need arises, one manner of addressing the problem is merely to employ an additional, separate support apparatus having the additional support area which is necessary. However, this option initially requires the purchase of the additional support apparatus which will be used only occasionally, and further requires that there be sufficient space to store such additional support apparatus when not in use.
In the case of tables, some may be expanded in upper surface area by adding additional leaves to the table, typically by opening the table to expose a gap which can receive one or more of the leaves. Again, however, the leaves must be purchased and stored. As a further alternative, the available table surface area can be increased by use of convertible tables having double thickness table surface members which are hinged along one end to allow the member to be opened, thereby exposing the additional table surface. This last type of convertible table requires a secure attachment along the hinge line to permit repeated openings without breakage, and requires additional means to provide support for the opened section. In all the above examples, the expanded table surface is typically limited to a rectangular shape because of the restraints in constructing these types of convertible tables.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a support apparatus having an easily expandable upper support surface having a large number of possible surface and base configurations and a large number of potential applications.